


every journey always brings me back to you

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 02:11:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Communication, and communion, is key.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every journey always brings me back to you

**Author's Note:**

> This piece finishes the [Universal](http://archiveofourown.org/works/526488), [Piano Man](http://archiveofourown.org/works/527306), and [lay me down, wash away the sorrow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/533235).

She's gone for four days. 

Damon obsesses over what to do. Should he go find her and beg forgiveness? Should he buy her a present? (Because seriously, for the first day and a half, he thinks that's what the problem is, that he didn't do anything special for their anniversary.) Should he call Stefan already, who has only been gone 24, 48, 72 hours? Should he just start cataloging his memories, because that's it, end of show? What exactly had he done wrong, anyway? He can't, for the life of him, figure it out.

So he does nothing. Well, he drinks, misses Ric, almost calls Jeremy (reminds himself that asking a 16-year-old kid for relationship advice is probably not a good idea), and realizes that Elena wants something from him that he might not be able to give. Because he's not even sure what it is.

So, when she shows up in the living room at the Boarding House and he starts to apologize, she just holds up her hands to stop him. "Look, I know you're not good at this. You'll probably never be good at it. But you are going to let me talk, and you are going to let me feel, and you are going to let _yourself_ do the same. So, sit down."

He sets his half-finished drink on the table and walks over to the sofa. It's only been four days, but this feeling erupts in his stomach at seeing her. It's hunger (not for blood) and need (the thing he hates most) and his hands are shaking, so he curls them into fists and jams them under his thighs as he sits down.

She comes over to him and slides on to his lap, which is not what he's expecting. She presses her lips to his, just a gentle rub, her mouth ghosting over his a couple of times until he stretches his neck to try to deepen the kiss. She puts her finger against his lips and whispers, "I love you, Damon," and the hunger is uncontainable. His hands move from under his legs to grab at her face. He pulls her down to him, but she won't let him kiss her. Not yet, anyway.

She touches his face with her fingertip, tracing over his lips, the line of his jaw, his nose, brushing against his eyelids until they close. She leans into him then and drops kisses against his eyelashes. When he says her name, she just breathes, "Shhhh," into his ear, and passes her mouth over his earlobe softly.

He feels like he has electric currents running through his body. Wherever she touches him, it's like a raw nerve exposed to the light, and he starts to get hard beneath her. When she finally brings her mouth back around to his, she whispers against his lips, "We're just going to kiss. For hours, we're going to kiss and not get off, do you understand?"

He doesn't, he doesn't get any of it, but he nods his head because he just wants her mouth so badly he can't stand it one second longer. Their tongues slide together, and he groans in his throat, bucking up against her. Her lips shape themselves over his, she delicately sucks on his tongue, and then she rims the tender inside of his lips with her own.

Honestly, it's the most erotic experience of his life, because she just never stops. If she's not French kissing him, she's pressing open mouthed ones to his chin, his jaw, his throat. Her fingers play in the hair at the back of neck, and she tugs his head back and forth, depending on where she wants to place more kisses. Under his ear, against his Adam's apple; then she stretches the neck of his t-shirt out and sucks a little hickey at the base of his throat where it starts to curve into his shoulder.

"'Lena," he pants against her when her mouth returns to his, and she finally lets him push her back into the couch cushions and climb between her legs. He grinds against her, but she locks one of her legs around his hips so that he can't move easily. "Just kiss me," she says, her voice a wispy command that nearly undoes him anyway.

But he does as she says, leaning down and kissing her. Her mouth, her neck, her throat. He sucks on her earlobe until she keens against him and when his hand moves to her breast, she arches into him. Her nipple is hard beneath her shirt and bra, but she stops him when his hand goes for the hem of her shirt. Their eyes meet and he whispers, "I want to kiss you here," and he plucks at her nipple until she's gasping and rubbing against him.

She shakes her head, says, "No," and slides her fingers around the back of his head to bring his mouth back to hers. So they keep kissing. Damon's lips go numb at some point and he has a flash of what Elena must have been like at 15 or 16, in backseats with boys driving them crazy with this act. He knows what she wants, can feel the heat of her though the jeans she's wearing, but the friction between their lower bodies just isn't enough, not with two layers of denim. 

He pulls away for oxygen at one point and she continues kissing his throat, her tongue doing little flicking forays against his skin, leaving trails of wet heat behind. He slides a hand under her ass and lifts her up against him. "Baby, please..." he pants, but she shakes her head again. 

Her fingers come around to the sides of his face and she pushes him back so that they can see each other clearly. "This is making out, Damon."

He'd roll his eyes, but he feels entranced by her, almost as if she's compelling him, though he knows that's not possible; all he knows is he can't look away. "I know," he answers, his voice breathy.

"Sometimes people are together like this, because they love each other. They don't have sex. They don't get off. They're just...together."

She squirms against him and he thinks maybe he could get off, just like this.

Her hands cup his face. "I want to be with you, like this. And like that. I want to be with you in all the ways. In every way, Damon, I want you. Do you understand?"

His mouth has gone dry, so he licks his lips and tries to focus on what she's saying, but her eyes flick back to his mouth. She stares at his lips until the ache inside him is bigger than he can fathom. "Elena..." he says, and he's still panting, even though they haven't been kissing for a few moments.

"Tell me how you feel right now," she says, and her gaze glides up his face. It moves so slowly, it's like he can feel a pathway of heat running up over his cheeks to his own eyes.

"Like I'm dying," he confesses. "I need you, so much. If I can't have you...I'll die."

"If you can't fuck me?" she asks quietly.

"Yes. No." He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. It's more than that, it's always been more than that. Before they started having sex, he didn't even care about that, he just wanted to be with her, just wanted her to love him, he just... _wanted_. "I want you," he says, the words tripping out of his mouth. "I want you, I want to be inside you, I want to know that you...that you will never leave... that you want this," he flexes his hips into hers, "as much as I do. That you need me. That you ... don't want to live without me."

Her finger trails down his cheek, and she says in a soft, low voice, "That I would stay, even if you didn't get me off?"

He blinks. "I don't think you..." he starts automatically. But then he stops. Because that's exactly what he thinks. In some part of his mind, the part that he doesn't pull out and examine too often, it's there. That idea. 

(She only wants him for what he does for her. And someday, she'll even get tired of that.)

She slides her hand between their bellies, lower, so that her palm covers his erection and he jerks against her. "Is this all you want me for?" she asks.

"No!" he almost shouts. "God, no. You know I don't, Elena. I'd be happy to just sit here and hold your hand."

Her fingers undo his button and zipper and slip inside his pants. He takes a sharp breath, trying to keep his focus again, but he's having a hard time keeping his eyes from rolling back in his head as the sensation overwhelms him. "Are you sure?" she asks as her thumb finds the wet head of his cock.

"Oh, fuck," he groans, his hips automatically thrusting. "No, no, no," he pants, dropping his forehead down on hers. "I love you, Elena. I love _you_. When we're like this, when you, _ah, sweet Jesus_ , touch...m-me...I just, I just...." and he can't say anything else, because he's so close and he's sure she's going to give him one hard squeeze and make anything he's saying sound like a mother fucking lie. 

"This is an expression of love, Damon. Do you get that?" Her hand shifts and she moves out from under him, dumping him to the inside of the couch so that he's not lying on top of her anymore. "When I touch you like this, it's because I love you, and I want to show you I love you." She continues to stroke him the whole time she's talking, which makes it really difficult for him to completely listen. "It's for when words aren't enough, for when looking at you overwhelms me and the only way to really express it is..."

She trails off because he gasps her name, essentially interrupting her and then he's coming, all over her hand, all over the both of their mid-sections, and he can't breathe, or talk, or do anything except throw his head back against the couch and ride it out.

Faintly, he hears her say, "Is to make you lose your mind."

(Mission accomplished.)

As he recovers, she eases her other arm around him, her palm directing his head to her shoulder. He leans against her, and when his breathing returns to normal, he says, "So, how'd you come up with this idea?" because he's stupified and embarrassed and in love and desperate to make what she just said true.

"I started to think about how you really haven't done this—made love—for a long time. Maybe you never really did it. If you..." she clears her throat nervously, and then continues, somewhat sheepishly. "If you were a virgin when you first got together with Katherine, I just assumed, since then. You haven't. You have it all mixed up in your head. Once I got away from you for a few days and you couldn't just kiss me senseless when I tried to talk to you about something serious, it just sort of clicked for me."

She presses her lips to his forehead. "Am I wrong?" she asks when he says nothing.

Damon sits up and pulls his shirt off to wipe up the mess. He crumples it into a ball and tosses it across the room to one of the chairs before he looks at her. "No. No, you're not wrong."

Elena scoots back and sits up as well so they're eye to eye. "Pretty pathetic, huh?" he asks, and that's when he wants to look away, break eye contact, end this whole thing that feels as raw and exposing as her hand on his dick right after he comes. He feels overbearingly sensitive, so he tucks himself back into his pants, busying himself with that while she sits quietly beside him.

"You're not pathetic," she says, and he can hear the tears in her voice, so his eyes jump back to her face of their own volition. "You've...just had a really sad life."

* * *

It's almost a visible mask that he slips on over his head as he moves further down the sofa from her. "My life has been just fine," he snaps.

Elena lets him go, lets him get off the couch, putting distance between them. She knows she can't work him up every time into a place where he'll let himself be vulnerable, but she thought it might last a few minutes longer.

(Wrong, again.)

She gets up herself and leaves the room, heading for the smaller downstairs bathroom. She needs to wash her hands, and figure out where to go from here. She wants to be able to love Damon the way she loved Stefan. When things were good between her and the younger Salvatore, he never rejected her. This, what's been going on between her and Damon for the last six months, is what's _good_ between them, but he still rejects her all the time.

It only occurred to her in a fit of tears over the last few days that he rejects her before she can reject him. Because he's certain that she will. He told her straight up that he doesn't think she'll stay with him. How much more obvious could it be?

It's not just that Elena came into the world with an ability to feel compassion for people who sometimes didn't even seem to deserve it, or that as a vampire, that aspect of her personality is now enhanced. It's that, with Damon in particular, she has always been able to understand why he does what he does. And now, at the time it matters most, when she wants nothing more than to be with him, and be happy, she couldn't get clarity.

If she hadn't left, gotten away from him for a few days, she probably never would have figured it out.

She dries her hands on the towel hanging on the small rack beside the sink and turns to go back to the living room, but Damon's standing in the doorway, just watching her. He's still shirtless, but his face is softer somehow, like he took the mask off again. "I'm sorry," he says, his expression so open and sincere, it makes Elena start crying again. She flings herself against him, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. "I don't know how to do this, Elena," he whispers into her neck. "I'm not good at it, but I want it—I want _you_ —so much. Please, don't..." He trails off, but it's okay.

She knows what he would say if he could get the words out, because it's her fear, too. So she says them instead, "Don't leave me," and his arms surround her, tight and sure and comforting.

"Never," he replies.

They just stand there, holding each other for a long time. When Elena finally pulls back, she cups his face in her hands again. "Stefan left for Stefan. He needs to figure things out for himself. I know you'll miss him, but he won't be gone forever. And you can always go visit him, wherever he is, without me. But please stop thinking I'm going to wake up one day and just run away after him. You're the one I want, you're the one I chose. You're the one I was too afraid to be with when I was human. But I'm not human anymore, Damon."

Tears shimmer in his eyes, so he blinks several times to get rid of them while nodding some sort of agreement with her. Elena slides her fingers up to dab gently at the corners, and then she wipes them against her lips, tasting the salt of his tears. "I love you," she says gently.

He swallows tightly before finally answering in return. "I love _you_ ," he says, and then leans down to kiss her mouth. It's sweet and chaste until it's not and then he's giving her a run for her money, kissing her slowly, but thoroughly, his tongue the most delicious of marauders. 

They end up with her on the sink counter and him between her legs, but he appears content to just kiss her. His hands stay on her back, rubbing up and down, but never slipping underneath to unhook her bra or take it any further. He kisses her cheeks and her throat, drags his tongue across her skin to her ear, laving the lobe until she's whimpering against him. He gives her little love bites all down the side of her throat, and then he tugs her shirt collar aside. She waits for him to suck her skin up in a bruise that will heal rapidly, but he doesn't. Instead his fangs are there, piercing her skin and she groans as pleasure swamps her.

"Oh god!" she cries when an orgasm overtakes her without any warning.

He withdraws his teeth, and wipes his mouth as he pulls back, a little smirk on his face. She punches him swiftly, but not too hard. "How did you know that would happen?" she demands.

He smiles, and leans in to press a blood-slick kiss to her lips. "I just figured it would be a pretty short fuse, since you've been worked up and left hanging." He laughs a little as she narrows her eyes at him, but then his expression turns serious. "Elena," he says, solemnly. "Will you go upstairs with me, and let me make love to you?"

She arches a brow at him. "What if I say no?" she asks.

He steps back and holds his hand out to her. "Elena, will you come into the living room and make out with me until one or the both of us can't feel our lips anymore?" He barely represses a smirk, which in turn makes it difficult for Elena to keep her lips in a straight line herself.

"Will you try very hard to talk about your feelings instead of avoiding them with sex?" she counters.

He looks at her fiercely as he says, "Yes, I'll try. But you might have to kick my ass every once in a while as a reminder."

Then, Elena can't stop the smile that blooms across her face. "In that case, you can have whatever you want."

She giggles as he carries her up the stairs to his room.


End file.
